


A Little Bit of Me, A Little Bit of You

by tatooedlaura



Series: Life, Part 3 [30]
Category: The X-Files
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-05-21 22:27:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14924039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tatooedlaura/pseuds/tatooedlaura
Summary: It took a while for things to calm down, 4am finally showing signs of quiet, Mulder awake, Scully asleep, five-week early 5lb, 2oz., healthy, weight of the world cuddled in his father’s arms, Maggie and Skinner on their way home, Gunmen sacked out in their van in some undisclosed location.





	A Little Bit of Me, A Little Bit of You

It took a while for things to calm down, 4am finally showing signs of quiet, Mulder awake, Scully asleep, five-week early 5lb, 2oz., healthy, weight of the world cuddled in his father’s arms, Maggie and Skinner on their way home, Gunmen sacked out in their van in some undisclosed location. He couldn’t get over the ability to move his own hands, cross his feet at his own will and not someone else’s. He couldn’t fathom how beautiful his son felt under his fingertips, smallest nose in the world, dimpled chin, chubby cheeks, wisps of pale red hair. He was alone in the universe with his son and his Scully.

He wondered how long it could last.

&&&&&&

“Would you like me to take your son back to the nursery so you can get some sleep?”

The nurse asked him quietly in the pale darkness, not realizing Mulder would never let his boy be alone unless absolutely God-damned necessary, and he responded just as softly, “no, thank you. He’s no trouble.”

With a smile, she backed out of the room, “call if you need anything.”

As soon as the door clicked shut, he heard Scully begin moving, head turning, hands shifting. Knowing what was coming next, “don’t stretch.”

Nanosecond comprehension followed by light groan but she remained unstretched, “thanks. I forgot.”

“I figured you had.” Smiling from his shadowed corner, “want to hold your kid?”

Arms already held out, “yes, please.” Transfer precarious, nerve-wracking on Mulder’s end, amused on Scully’s, she finally had small child close, still asleep, still perfect, “did he give you any trouble?”

“Not even a little bit.” Scooting his chair closer, he leaned over, smoothing down tiny eyebrows, tracing miniscule ears, “I found my spot on him by the way. You need to find yours.”

Gently kissing baby knuckles and baby nails, “I did in the delivery room. Mine’s on the bottom half, where’s yours?”

“Top. We’re good.”

Like all other things they’d worked out in the world, they had both located a unique feature, small, forgotten about, identifiable mark that would always announce to them alone that this was their son, their offspring, their perfect little future sciency believer: Mulder’s a set of freckles in the left ear, one big, one small, planet and moon, big Mulder, little Scully … Scully’s a larger brown splotch on the bottom of right side big toe, hidden in the crease but there forevermore.

Never to be shared with the other outloud or in silence, separate secret a layer of protection for their most favorite thing in the world.

Once they’d breathed him in to their joint satisfaction, Scully looked up, tired but happy, “he needs a name, Mulder.”

“We probably should have discussed that earlier.”

“Hey, we decided we didn’t want to jinx anything and me being the gigantic disbeliever in jinxes, complied to your jinxing-ness but since he’s here and we can’t keep calling him ‘hey you’, we need to have a discussion.”

For half a moment, he debated calling him Jinx Mulder but knowing that suggestion would removed any naming rights he had, he declined, “well, I’m not naming him ‘Fox’ and I’m not letting you name him ‘Fox’ so we’ve eliminated one right there and Dana Jr. probably really isn’t an option either so given I have now suggested those two, it’s your turn.”

“My God, you need some sleep.”

“Eventually.”

She’d asked him, while they took the baby away from her for precious seconds to scrub him down and de-goo him, ‘what happened?’ He’d replied, ‘not now’ and understanding, she’d tabled that heavy discussion for some time later and seeing just how tired and happy he seemed, she didn’t push it now either, leaving the sleeping comment hanging out there in the atmosphere, “well, I’m thinking the obvious would be William, after every damn relative we both have but we would definitely not be calling him Bill. I’d go with Will or nothing.”

“Willornothing Mulder … Willornothing Scully … Willornothing Scully-Mulder … We never talked about a last name either.” Looking down at tiny baby, he couldn’t really bear to give him a terribly long name, “although saying it outloud, we can’t saddle this kid with a hyphen. Scully or Mulder but the combination is atrocious.”

Brushing across wispy hair and literal baby soft skin, Scully smiled down at her son, “I like William Walter Mulder, myself; little bit of old, little bit of new, little bit of me, little bit of you.”

“Do you realize you rhyme more things than the average person without meaning to?”

Enamored with her offspring, she smiled a little wider, “not at all and I don’t care.” Glancing up quickly to him, her eyes fell right back to their son, “look at him. We made this. I’ll rhyme and you’ll joke and he will hear them both and be ours regardless of how much he rolls his eyes or laughs or thinks we’re the weirdest people on Earth.”

“Oh, my God, Scully, do you realize we have a ready-made audience?”

“Since when do you have a God?”

“Since about the moment I saw you give birth to the Thing.” Kissing her forehead, kissing his son’s, “it’s an unformed, unnamed notionary being of higher power at the moment but something got me here and kept Krycek from killing me and has kept us alive and given us this miniscule miracle so …” lengthy, unrushed pause ended with a barely exhaled, “yeah.”

Leaving things with her own breathed, ‘yeah’, her eyes began drifting shut, staring until her son became blurry and Mulder whispered ‘good-night’ while gently removing son from mother, “I love you.”

She ‘hmmm-ed’ her response and he grinned, settling back in with his baby boy on his chest, the room back to silence, the only sound soft snuffling of four-hour old baby and the light snoring of his partner.


End file.
